Peru reacts to urgent calls to protect uncontacted tribe's land - News from Survival
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- Published on Tuesday, 07 October 2014 12:40
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Peru reacts to urgent calls to protect uncontacted tribe’s land
In September 2014 an Adventist priest made contact with uncontacted Mashco-Piro Indians and left clothes and food for them, putting them at extreme risk of contracting fatal diseases to which they have no immunity. © Jaime Corisepa/FENAMAD
The Peruvian government has responded to urgent calls by Survival International and Amazon Indian organization FENAMAD to protect land inhabited by highly vulnerable uncontacted Indians.
Alarms were raised after a missionary was caught on camera handing clothes and other items to young members of the tribe, sparking fears that the Indians could contract fatal diseases which would wipe them out.
Over 13,000 Survival supporters have written to the Peruvian government urging it to immediately implement measures to ensure the Indians’ lands and lives are protected.
Peru’s Ministry of Culture has now responded by creating an emergency committee to manage the situation.
But the Ministry’s measure falls short of demands by local indigenous peoples.
FENAMAD is calling on the government to: expand the Madre de Dios Reserve (where the tribe have been seen recently) to include a further 1.2 million hectares of the uncontacted tribes’ ancestral homeland; employ and train a team of experts to man local guard-posts; and grant local guards the power of arrest to prevent illegal loggers and drug traffickers from invading the region.
Survival is supporting FENAMAD’s demands.
Please sign Survival’s petition urging the government to protect uncontacted tribes’ land here.
Uncontacted tribal peoples are the most vulnerable societies on the planet. Whole populations have been wiped out by diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
Read this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10460
Botswana President shamed by Bushman protest at election rally
The Bushmen protested at an election rally of President Ian Khama, demanding the right to hunt to feed their families be upheld (archive image). © Survival International
Botswana’s President Ian Khama was met with protests during an election rally at a Bushman eviction camp last Saturday, over government attempts to starve the Bushmen off their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Kalahari Bushmen demanded that their right to hunt to feed their families be recognized. They brandished slogans reading “Hunters Not Poachers” and "Bushmen are the best conservationists.”
The Presidency of Ian Khama – who sits on the board of U.S. environmental organization Conservation International – has been marred by controversy over his attempts to force the Bushmen out of the reserve in the name of conservation, while allowing fracking exploration and a diamond mine to go ahead on their land.
During his visit to “New Xade” eviction camp, Khama failed to address any issues currently affecting the Bushmen, such as the government’s refusal to allow the Bushmen to hunt inside the reserve; the requirement for Bushmen to apply for restrictive permits to enter the reserve; and the recent opening of a diamond mine on Bushman land.
Despite an historic High Court ruling in 2006 which upheld the Bushmen’s right to live, and hunt, inside the reserve, the government issued a blanket ban on hunting earlier this year.
The Bushmen are better at looking after their environment than anyone else. But they are accused of “poaching” because they hunt their food and face harassment, torture and arrest, while fee-paying big-game hunters are encouraged.
Bushman eviction camps like New Xade have been called “places of death” by the Bushmen. Forced to live a sedentary lifestyle, the previously semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers face high levels of alcoholism and AIDS, as reported by the BBC in January 2014.
Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, said today, “The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was created as a ‘place of sanctuary’ for the Bushmen to live and hunt in. Yet not a single conservation organization stood up for the Bushmen’s human rights when they were illegally evicted in the name of ‘conservation’. They have similarly turned a blind eye to the diamond mining and fracking exploration President Khama encourages on Bushman land. Conservation International has even elevated Khama – the man responsible for the tribes’ continued persecution – to its board of directors, shamefully ignoring his atrocious human rights record.”
Read this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/10452
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